Free Moondance Beach by Susan Donovan

he realizes they’re all going to die. Water is everywhere. The boats are being blown sideways. Almost every man on theisland was out that day, so if they died, then every family on the island would have been destroyed.”
    Lena slapped a hand over her mouth.
    “So my great-great-grandfather is about to give up and let the sea swallow them whole, when he looks down into the stormy water and sees . . .”
    Lena waited while Duncan coughed a few times. She jumped up and sat on her haunches, ready to hear what happened next. He was teasing her. “What?” She smacked her hands onto the comforter. “What does he see?”
    “A mermaid!”
    She gasped.
    “And she stares up at him from down in the water and guides all the boats safely to shore. Everybody is cheering and stuff, and as soon as my great-great-grandfather touches land, he tells his men he has to find her and jumps right back into the stormy sea, like a crazy person. They drag him out again and get him to a tavern, where the owner’s daughter nurses him. You know, she gives him soup and dries him off and stuff.”
    Lena nodded. “Go on!”
    “Well, he wakes up a couple days later, sees this really pretty girl taking care of him, and freaks out. He thinks she’s the mermaid. He
swears
she is! And he goes down on his knees and begs her to marry him.”
    Lena tipped her head to the side, blinking in disbelief. “He married a mermaid?”
    Duncan laughed, coughed, then laughed again. When he looked at her, his eyes had softened. He seemed a little nicer. “How old did you say you are?”
    “Seven.”
    “I’m ten. That’s a
lot
older. I am way more mature than you.”
    “So?” Lena crossed her legs once more and settled onto the comforter. “I had a friend who was only four and one who was nine. Can you finish the story now, please?”
    “You got it.” Duncan cleared his throat, and that’s when Lena noticed how his shoulders poked up under his T-shirt. She tried hard to be quiet, but he was so skinny it scared her. For the first time, she wondered—how sick was he?
    “Are you going to die?”
    “What?” His face froze.
    “I just . . . I wondered if you are so sick that you’re going to die.”
    Duncan looked away. She saw that he was working hard to breathe, and she watched as he grabbed his inhaler and took his medicine. When he finally faced her again, his face looked blank.
    “So. You wanna know what happened to the mermaid girl?”
    “Yes!”
    He chuckled. “Right. So Rutherford marries the tavern keeper’s daughter, and later, after they have kids and get even richer and build this house and everything, he becomes mayor and decides to have a fountain made in honor of his wife. He gets some famous artist to do it, and they have this big party to reveal it. The cover gets pulled away and there she is—a mermaid! And nobody knows what to say.”
    “Why? Didn’t they like it?”
    A smile slowly spread on Duncan’s face. “Now I’m going to tell you the
real
story, Adelena Silva, something you won’t find in any book. Pay attention and never forget what I’m about to tell you.” He paused.
    “Go on!”
    “If you say so. Here’s the truth: my great-great-grandfather was a nutcase. You know, cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.”
    Lena felt her mouth fall open.
    “Of course his wife wasn’t a mermaid! But he
thought
she was. And my ma thinks so, too, and she’s in charge of a whole group of women who dress up like mermaids and have meetings in our dining room. So the real story is that everyone on this island is a little crazy, and so are you if you think that stupid story is real!”
    Lena let her hands fall to her sides, overwhelmed with disappointment and numb with sadness. But Duncan kept smiling, like he was happy he’d just destroyed something. She didn’t understand it.
    Slowly, Lena got off the bed and lifted the book into her arms. She stood over Duncan, trying to figure out what she saw. Those eyes stared at her—burning blue